The Best Independent Bookstores in Guadalajara

In recent years, Guadalajara has established itself as the second most important city in Mexico, especially when it comes to culture and the arts – the city now hosts the November International Book Fair, the most important in the Spanish-language market. If you’re a bookworm, be sure to check out our top picks for the best bookstores of Guadalajara to get your literary fix.

Siglo XXI Editores

Founded fifty years ago by a group of artists, writers, entrepreneurs and university students, Siglo XXI Editores has a large catalog of books in social and human sciences, published to high academic standards. If you are looking to read a good essay or writings from the great thinkers of the 20th century, you’ll find it here in the Guadalajara store run by Germán Ildefonso García.

Gandhi

When Ghandi was installed in Guadalajara it was a small apartment with some reading chairs and a small cafeteria. Its new headquarters in Lafayette colony, one of the coolest areas of the city, is a large house full of shelves filled with books, records, and notebooks. In addition, it now has an incredible children’s section and still retains its reading chairs and its cafeteria. Open throughout the week, it also has valet parking and free internet.

Fondo de Cultura Económica

The Fund for Economic Culture (FCE) is a non-profit organization and partially supported by the State. It was founded in 1934 by Daniel Cosío Villegas for the purpose of promoting reading. ‘El Fondo’, as it is known, has since published more than 10,000 works, and has an electronic catalog of more than 1,300 titles. It has more than 20 bookstores throughout the country and ten subsidiaries abroad. The Guadalajara store is named after the writer José Luis Martinez, so it is known locally as ‘La Joseluisa’.

Impronta Casa Editora

This small independent bookstore opened its doors to the public in 2014 with the idea of using printing techniques, with old machines of movable types and linotype. Its intention is to move away from the immediacy of mass manufacture and digitisation, and resume the art of the book and the sensory experience of reading. Casa Impronta is a workshop-museum that also offers specialized design and printing services,and has an art gallery and coffee shop.

El Desván de Don Quijote

A bookstore well known by writers, artists and especially students of the city who find new and used books of all subjects, this charming store’s slogan is ‘All about books – if we don’t have it, we’ll get it’. Look carefully and you’ll find that the prices of some used books are half a dollar. They also have a San Pedro Tlaquepaque branch on Reforma No.152.

Librería Itaca

In this small bookstore you can find new and used copies of books from novels to philosophy treaties. You can go through and see the titles or ask the staff for recommendations. The store is located a few blocks from Chapultepec Avenue, one of the most vibrant areas of the city, and has relatively cheap prices.